Cerebral Cortex Generated from Pluripotent Stem Cells to Model Corticogenesis and Rebuild Cortical Circuits: In Vitro Veritas?

Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI) is one of the main diseases causing female infertility that occurs in about 1% of women between 30-40 years of age. There are few effective methods for the treatment of women with POI. In the past few years, stem cell-based therapy as one of the most highly investigated new therapies has emerged as a promising strategy for the treatment of POI. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) can self-renew indefinitely and differentiate into any type of cell. Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESCs) as a type of pluripotent stem cells are the most powerful candidate for the treatment of POI. Human-induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs) are derived from adult somatic cells by the treatment with exogenous defined factors to create an embryonic-like pluripotent state. Both hiPSCs and hESCs can proliferate and give rise to ectodermal, mesodermal, endodermal, and germ cell lineages. After ovarian stimulation, the number of available oocytes is limited and the yield of total oocytes with high quality is low. Therefore, a robust and reproducible in-vitro culture system that supports the differentiation of human oocytes from PSCs is necessary. Very few studies have focused on the derivation of oocyte-like cells from hiPSCs and the details of hPSCs differentiation into oocytes have not been fully investigated. Therefore, in this review, we focus on the differentiation potential of hPSCs into human oocyte-like cells.

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Human muscle production in vitro from pluripotent stem cells: Basic and clinical applications

Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology ◽

10.1016/j.semcdb.2021.04.017 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lu Yan ◽

Alejandra Rodríguez-delaRosa ◽

Olivier Pourquié

Keyword(s):

Stem Cells ◽

Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Clinical Applications ◽

Human Muscle

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Stability of Imprinting and Differentiation Capacity in Naïve Human Cells Induced by Chemical Inhibition of CDK8 and CDK19

Cells ◽

10.3390/cells10040876 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 876

Author(s):

Raquel Bernad ◽

Cian J. Lynch ◽

Rocio G. Urdinguio ◽

Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini ◽

Mario F. Fraga ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stem Cells ◽

Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Primordial Germ Cell ◽

Normal Karyotype ◽

Cell Types ◽

Dna Demethylation ◽

Starting State ◽

Teratoma Formation

Pluripotent stem cells can be stabilized in vitro at different developmental states by the use of specific chemicals and soluble factors. The naïve and primed states are the best characterized pluripotency states. Naïve pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) correspond to the early pre-implantation blastocyst and, in mice, constitute the optimal starting state for subsequent developmental applications. However, the stabilization of human naïve PSCs remains challenging because, after short-term culture, most current methods result in karyotypic abnormalities, aberrant DNA methylation patterns, loss of imprinting and severely compromised developmental potency. We have recently developed a novel method to induce and stabilize naïve human PSCs that consists in the simple addition of a chemical inhibitor for the closely related CDK8 and CDK19 kinases (CDK8/19i). Long-term cultured CDK8/19i-naïve human PSCs preserve their normal karyotype and do not show widespread DNA demethylation. Here, we investigate the long-term stability of allele-specific methylation at imprinted loci and the differentiation potency of CDK8/19i-naïve human PSCs. We report that long-term cultured CDK8/19i-naïve human PSCs retain the imprinting profile of their parental primed cells, and imprints are further retained upon differentiation in the context of teratoma formation. We have also tested the capacity of long-term cultured CDK8/19i-naïve human PSCs to differentiate into primordial germ cell (PGC)-like cells (PGCLCs) and trophoblast stem cells (TSCs), two cell types that are accessible from the naïve state. Interestingly, long-term cultured CDK8/19i-naïve human PSCs differentiated into PGCLCs with a similar efficiency to their primed counterparts. Also, long-term cultured CDK8/19i-naïve human PSCs were able to differentiate into TSCs, a transition that was not possible for primed PSCs. We conclude that inhibition of CDK8/19 stabilizes human PSCs in a functional naïve state that preserves imprinting and potency over long-term culture.

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Differentiation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSC) into Endothelial-Type Cells and Establishment of an In Vitro Blood-Brain Barrier Model

10.1007/7651_2021_363 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yuan Li ◽

Georg C. Terstappen ◽

Wandong Zhang

Keyword(s):

Stem Cells ◽

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Blood Brain Barrier ◽

Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Brain Barrier ◽

Blood Brain ◽

Blood Brain Barrier Model ◽

Induced Pluripotent ◽

Barrier Model

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Formative pluripotent stem cells show features of epiblast cells poised for gastrulation

Cell Research ◽

10.1038/s41422-021-00477-x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Xiaoxiao Wang ◽

Yunlong Xiang ◽

Yang Yu ◽

Ran Wang ◽

Yu Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stem Cells ◽

Germ Cells ◽

Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽

Primordial Germ Cells ◽

Embryonic Stem ◽

Large Set ◽

Mouse Escs ◽

Epiblast Stem Cells ◽

Early Gastrula

AbstractThe pluripotency of mammalian early and late epiblast could be recapitulated by naïve embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and primed epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs), respectively. However, these two states of pluripotency may not be sufficient to reflect the full complexity and developmental potency of the epiblast during mammalian early development. Here we report the establishment of self-renewing formative pluripotent stem cells (fPSCs) which manifest features of epiblast cells poised for gastrulation. fPSCs can be established from different mouse ESCs, pre-/early-gastrula epiblasts and induced PSCs. Similar to pre-/early-gastrula epiblasts, fPSCs show the transcriptomic features of formative pluripotency, which are distinct from naïve ESCs and primed EpiSCs. fPSCs show the unique epigenetic states of E6.5 epiblast, including the super-bivalency of a large set of developmental genes. Just like epiblast cells immediately before gastrulation, fPSCs can efficiently differentiate into three germ layers and primordial germ cells (PGCs) in vitro. Thus, fPSCs highlight the feasibility of using PSCs to explore the development of mammalian epiblast.

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